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In our emails, sent once or twice a week, you'll receive:
• alerts on new threats to Washington's environment
• opportunities to join other Washingtonians on urgent actions
• updates on the decisions that impact our environment
• resources to help you create a cleaner, greener future

Updates

Alliance Launched To Save Bees

Sixty-five chefs, restaurant owners and other culinary leaders joined us to launch the Bee Friendly Food Alliance. Through the Alliance, chefs and restaurateurs are calling attention to the importance of bees to our food supply, the dramatic die-off of bee populations, and the need to protect our pollinators. LEARN MORE.

With Earth Day approaching, Environment Washington released a new guide to help Washingtonians improve the energy performance of their homes and workplaces. The renewable energy and energy-saving measures proposed by Environment Washington’s “Plug into Clean Energy Guide” promise to lower energy bills and reduce pollution.

America’s homes are like cars that only get 10 miles to the gallon. Buildings consume 40 percent of America’s energy, and much of that energy is literally flying out the window rather than heating or cooling our homes and businesses. What’s worse, energy-wasting buildings are responsible for nearly half of our nation’s greenhouse gas emissions.

When power plants burn coal, oil or gas, they create the ingredients for ground-level ozone pollution, one of the main components of “smog” pollution. Especially on hot summer days, across wide areas of the United States, ozone pollution reaches levels that are unhealthy to breathe, putting our lives at risk. In 2009, U.S. power plants emitted more than 1.9 million tons of ozone-forming nitrogen oxide pollution into the air.

Washington could reduce pollution and dependence on fossil fuels through the deployment of off the shelf, cost-effective solar hot water technology, according to a new report by Environment Washington.

Solar water heating has the potential to reduce America’s dependence on fossil fuels and curb pollution that causes global warming and respiratory problems. By taking advantage of America’s full potential to produce hot water for homes and businesses from solar energy, the nation could reduce natural gas consumption by 2.5 percent and electricity use by nearly one percent, while avoiding 52 million metric tons of carbon dioxide pollution per year – equivalent to emissions from 13 coal-fired power plants or 9.9 million cars.